VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
View from the classroom
T his month,
Education Today is delighted to hear from Stephen
Chambers, Assistant Head at Avenue Junior School in Norwich, on a
fantastic initiative to involve his school’s
children in the opening up of The Plantation Garden in Norwich to the wider community.
Tell us about your school
Avenue Junior School is a vibrant four-form entry school in Norwich, educating roughly 480 pupils aged 7 to 11.
We pride ourselves on our tolerant, caring and creative children who hold, as a key value, respecting differences and celebrating ourselves as individuals. We are creative in our approach to education, working together to deliver a creative and engaging curriculum developed around themed topics. The varied expertise of our staff supports our long-established tradition of good learning and teaching. Specialist provision has led to our reputation for excellence in Sport and Music, including a 70-piece orchestra, Wind Band and Strings Group.
We maintain strong relationships within our cluster of schools, particularly with our main feeder school, and welcome new ways to develop links with parents and the local community. We are also fortunate to have an active and engaged governing body who work hard to support the school.
Tell us about the Plantation Garden The Plantation Garden is a Grade II English Heritage registered site, and a real hidden gem in the heart of Norwich. Created in the late 19th century on the site of an earlier chalk quarry, it fell in to disrepair in the 1950s until being ‘re- discovered' in the 1980s and lovingly restored to original plans. The Plantation Garden Preservation Trust is a dedicated team of volunteers who, between them, maintain the garden and organise a range of popular activities ranging from Sunday tea and cakes to outdoor cinema. It is a city centre site which comprises nearly 3 acres with features including a unique Gothic fountain, ‘Medieval’ wall, flower beds, lawns, terrace,
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summer-house, woodland walkways and rustic bridge. It reflects the personal vision of its creator, local businessman Henry Trevor, and combines the formal elements of a Victorian garden with less structured areas providing habitats for wildlife – the whole being an environment rich in educational possibilities.
What were the aims of the project? I was originally approached by the committee for the Plantation Garden Trust with a request to support them with a Heritage Lottery Fund initiative. A fundamental part of the proposal involved creating a legacy that would continue to benefit the local community in a meaningful way. Our Chair of Governors, who is also on the committee for the Plantation Garden Trust, knew this would be a fantastic opportunity for both the school and garden. Having visited the garden before, and been amazed by such a site in the middle of the city, I was eager to be involved with the project and to see how we might open the garden to a wider audience including local schools and families.
How did you approach the project? During our initial meeting, involving members of the Plantation Garden Trust, the aims developed and expanded quickly and we were soon engaged in an enthusiastic conversation about what we could offer the garden. The focus soon turned, quite naturally, to what the project could offer our pupils as well as other local schools and
the wider community and this soon became the logical way to approach the task. Initial ideas included the production of family-friendly guide books, information boards, trails and activities and the development of a Children’s and Education section for the garden's website. We began work on the project by involving small groups of children, such as our School Council and Eco-Council, in visits to the garden and in generating ideas for activities, resources and lessons. Each group returned from the site full of enthusiasm and ideas. We quickly had a growing list of suggestions for creative writing, poetry, maths and art as well as an architecture trail to be developed, tested and adapted by the children themselves. It soon became a project for the children, by the children, and their enthusiasm for the site and the work really helped to inspire us to expand the scope even further. Throughout the project, the entire school was involved in many ways with each child / class having visited the garden and all children being directly involved in the creation or testing of resources, activities, art, poetry and creative writing. I accompanied different groups of children to the garden on numerous occasions over the year and each time I was struck by their reluctance to leave and desire to continue with whatever activity they were involved with. Even the adults, whether members of staff from the school, accompanying parents, or staff from the RSPB leading their free wildlife workshops, came away each time feeling inspired and with a desire to return to the garden more often.
How did the project benefit your school? The Plantation Garden is the perfect location for various activities and lessons linked to our creative curriculum and the site has become an integral part of our planning, with each year group visiting over the course of the year. The enthusiasm of the children visiting the garden is always greatly encouraging and the first-hand experiences provided at the site continue to support the production of high-quality work in school. The project also helped to develop further links with our main feeder school with our pupils designing, developing and running activities for the younger children. The garden proved the perfect location for children to mix in an engaging and relaxing atmosphere and the highly successful work with a small group of Year 2
July/August 2017
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